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Pain in the Neck

I'm sitting here at nearly 3:00 in the morning again, dealing with these darn shingles. I have them on my right neck, shoulder and chest area. The thing that's causing me the most grief is the pain in my neck. Years ago I was in a car accident and injured my cervical spine. I've dealt with pain on the right side of my neck off and on since. Had MRI's and lots of therapy. It's pretty arthritic now. Since I've been on lupus meds, my neck hasn't been bad. But right now it's killing me. Could the shingles be irritating an already sensitive area? Or is this a coincidence? I'm using pain meds at a rate I haven't had to do in many, many months. I could sure use some suggestions (and some sleep!)

Jody

"If you trust Google more than you trust your doctor than maybe it's time to switch doctors."

Jody, when it rains, sometimes it really pours, doesn't it. The shingles virus is actually in the nerves, and all the nerve endings under the rash are inflammed, so it's probably not a coincidence that anything else affected by those nerves is probably hurting worse too. You're in kind of a catch 22 because heat might help the neck pain but make the shingles worse. Hopefully the increased pain will go away as the shingles get better. You might call your doctor and ask about upping your neurontin dose for a while, or see if he will prescribe something else for the pain that will work on both nerve and arthritic pain. A low dose of a muscle relaxer might help some too, but there just isn't much other than pain meds and anti-inflammatories that will do much good until you are over the shingles. Sorry, I know you're hurting - wish there was something I could do other than send you big cyber-hugs.

Thanks, Marycain. I still have a little 'wiggle room' in my neurontin prescription (I haven't quite been using my maximum prescribed dose) so I can up that a bit. The shingles seem to be calming down a little - the spread has stopped anyway. I know it'll pass - more an annoyance than anything.

Jody

"If you trust Google more than you trust your doctor than maybe it's time to switch doctors."